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A Linux Game That's Still Not Selling Well

03-21-2012, 10:20 AM

Phoronix: A Linux Game That's Still Not Selling Well

While the new Humble Bundle is already pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars, there's a new Source Engine game coming to Linux, and Wasteland 2 is likely coming to Linux, as just some of the recent Linux gaming achievements, there's still not a surplus of Linux-native games. Even without there being excessive amounts of Linux-native games, not all of the titles that do come are destined to sell well...

Wait... You're not being paid by Unigine to promote OilRush?! You've mentioned it in almost every gaming story for the past year, relevant or not - so you can understand why somebody might think you're in league with Unigine, and by extension you can see why they would think they'd need to cross your palm with silver to get better coverage. Even when you come out saying that you're not paid by Unigine, part of me doesn't believe it.

In the future if you don't want people to think you're a mouthpiece for another company you should limit the content given to something based on the actual news it generates. A few articles here and there when something happens is great. Mentioning it every day (as it seems to some of us lowly readers) is over the top.

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Motorsep:
* please don?t be rude or pissed off. linux gamers want good games just as windows gamers.
* maybe you could use "kickstarter"
* do ad videos properly, advertising future features and benefits of pre-ordering. But not in style of "development log". Development logs are completely different thing!
* I see the problem, that you "sell copies" to fund game development, where you should "preorder copies". Why? Because you are literally selling unfinished game and gamers are not programmers.
* be nice. please, please
* I can understand that Michael can not directly accept payment from you, but he mainly develops testing system. Because you develop 3d game, you could easily add what he asks and as such come into cooperation. But I think he is pissed at you a bit, because you are pissed about sales, of unfinished game.
* does this game autogenerates dungeons? Mod-friendly? LAN coop possible? more char classes(I clearly see a warlock there )?
* (im pretty sure it will never be opensource, so this place is intentionally left blank)
diablo got accepted because of very interesting combination of autogenerating terrain/monsters with high-quality content.
hexen/heretic due to massive use of medival theme (aka doom2 as warlock).
what points are you using that could make your game unique?

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Honestly, this guy (motorsep or whatever he's called) is an ass-hole, the more it goes, the more it shows. I think lots of people would have given him some goodwill in exchange for a little more consideration on his part, but he's just pissing on everybody from HiB to Phoronix and Linux users in general (see last thread on this very site).
There's no lack of good games, on Linux or not, and acting like an ass with your own audience isn't going to help.

So, as far as I'm concerned, all Kot-in-action games are from now on a big no-no. I have a huge backlog of games i purchase to support indies even though I don't have time to play them, but all things Kot will have no place in it.

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@Motorsep PR public work is not your strength because of this you should let experts do this work just put you game into a humble indie bundle yes you don't like it but in fact they do a much better job in public work than you do!

i personal like your games but you need to do hard work much more hard work.

only 1 kind of enemy is boring and the skeletons need weapons

we also need glowworms in the air and a feature to earn the glowworms to light up the map or enemys.

we need to make the bones of the skelettions usefull so we can earn it and use it for example to build a teammade with bones and magic!

and if you earn more and more bones you can build a stronger and bigger one.

Phantom circuit Sequence Reducer Dyslexia

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Honestly, this guy (motorsep or whatever he's called) is an ass-hole, the more it goes, the more it shows. I think lots of people would have given him some goodwill in exchange for a little more consideration on his part, but he's just pissing on everybody from HiB to Phoronix and Linux users in general (see last thread on this very site).
There's no lack of good games, on Linux or not, and acting like an ass with your own audience isn't going to help.

So, as far as I'm concerned, all Kot-in-action games are from now on a big no-no. I have a huge backlog of games i purchase to support indies even though I don't have time to play them, but all things Kot will have no place in it.

yes he is a egocentric ass-hole with a strong will and a rude character but even people like him do have the right to life

i support him i like his rude character!

but the really need help for the "Social-work" and PR and public work.

he need to step 1 or 2 steps backwards and let other people do the public work.

he should open up his new game for a new humble indie bundle and yes i know he hate it.

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To be honest, just because you _say_ you don't get any money doesn't mean it's true. It's not like it wouldn't fit the general attitude here. You say a lot of stuff, i.e. steam coming to linux, etc. etc. I wouldn't say the lot of it turned out to be true (but I don't think the lot of it was clearly false either, it's just speculations which are kind of grey).

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I understand this guy. He wants to sell his game, he sees the interpretation phoronix makes for the word 'journalism' (basically equated with 'sensationalism' and 'what sells well'), so he believes he can help getting his game exposed by getting it featured here. He's making you a business offer. Based on a business model you yourself have worked _really_ hard to promote! It's not such a twisted idea, come to think of it.

I just can't take anything that's written here seriously. I mean look at how you formulate your 'news' articles:

Last week I followed up with Kot In Action to see where their sales were pacing, but there wasn't much change. From Alexander Zubov, the founder of Kot In Action, "No, unfortunately not even close to the goal :/ We already have multiplayer working, so once polished enough, we will release another alpha and maybe that will get players interested more."

Now to further address the comments and questions by Phoronix readers that have been brought up recently in the forums wondering how Linux games get covered on Phoronix... With Tomes of Mephistopheles, it's an interesting story.

Alexander Zubov, the founder of Kot In Action, contacted me via email in mid-February. He quickly alleged that Unigine Corp was paying me to promote OilRush on Phoronix, since OilRush "was on the front page of the phoronix.com and Steel Storm was never there."

Do you assume your readers are so dumb they don't even remember the name and the function of someone over two paragraphs? Seriously...

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your not hitting your monthly banner hits or something ? so you figured what can I stir up again so people start posting... lets see aaah yes last month we had this 70 post long thread... lets see what I can get out of it this month....

question is will motorsep bite or not.... lol sorry but this so called news item is making me laugh